(December 26, 2012 at 12:29 pm)Tiberius Wrote: If the information was already public, I'm amazed there wasn't a website dedicated to doing this already. In any case, this is information that shouldn't be public in the first place. There is no need for the general population to know who owns guns.
Um, lets not confuse issues here.
ALL public documents are just that "public" and as such the concept of transparency has been a valued concept since the founders. The idea is to have the ability to hold government accountable, thus we make transactions with government public.
NOW having said that, my problem isn't that government documents are public, THEY SHOULD BE, but the tactic of "outing" at that mass scale is what I object to.
I don't care if they were publishing abortion doctor's offices(which are a matter of public record) just like an apartment or house you live in is also on the public file.
I do care that the public trust was violated, that is the issue. What that Newspaper was NOT illegal, but it was immoral. That was an abuse of "the freedom of information act", which was not the intent that law was put in place for.
They damaged all citizens rights and also sent a message to potential whistle blowers that the media does not have to value privacy rights.
IT DEPENDS on why a record is being accessed. Not that it is public. This was an abuse of power, not a public records issue. Public records have to be kept in civil society and access to them should not be either always or never, but make the case on a case by case issue. This Newspaper decided for all of us what rights we should have, and NO ENTITY public or private should be allowed to do that.
